FRENCH INDQ-CHINA

are all devices used to persuade the miserable coolie to consent to what
is really three years* slavery. The Southern plantation is represented

as an earthly paradise with all the food one can eat, short hours of labour,

and high pay. No mention is made of fines or corporal punishments,
or that days out for sickness are not paid. These agents earn from ten
to twelve piastres for each coolie hired. The wort is particularly easy
after a serious inundation. An armed guard is necessary to convoy to
the the procession of coolies who have unwittingly consented

to work in the South. Thousands of men by such trickery have been
deprived of their liberty and many of their lives, due to conditions on
the Southern plantations. The return of disgruntled coolies to the
North, as well as Annamite nationalist propaganda, has made it in-
creasingly difficult to hire more of such labour. The force of this reaction
in 1930 by the murder of Bazin, head of the Labour
Bureau.1

The government soon attacked this labour-hiring problem. A first

to control native agents was through a system of licensing,

Next the recruiting arms were restricted. The state tried to make the

cognizant of the terms of his contract, to make the

effective, to make the coolie realize that the money

he be paid back in labour, and that it was not simply

i gift in return for MB signature and the pleasure of taking his photo-

Am made to approximate accuracy in the

oa labourers3 identity cards, It has been calculated that

the of tie village Notables, about 30 per cent of

are

The of labour on Southern plantations have been the

of a literature, and have been ably exploited by the

fay the Opposition in the Chamber of Deputies.

Tbfe its aad refutation: every fact has been

Wd to When aft these remarks have been subjected

to seem to emerge. Coolies worked

ten m or a for which they were paid about

3*50 and usually their food. Unfortunately

tin Kit regulated by the employer

but m or caL The cat is indisputably

tbfc He collects a OMHnissioa from, each meagre

lit tfat to jmm Mm at fantastically

he a on even medical supplies*

•* €E p, 487.